


Without Wings

by KimCharmaine



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Fluff, Fluffy kiss scenes, M/M, No Smut, Plot Twist, all the feels, but instead will have amazing glorious feelings, but please stick through to the very end, clean, prepare your heart for broken feelings, tender love, where you will not have anymore broken feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-02
Updated: 2016-11-02
Packaged: 2018-08-28 14:32:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8450065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KimCharmaine/pseuds/KimCharmaine
Summary: Do Kyungsoo suffers from abuse both at school and at home, but the new kid, Kim Jongin (Kai), happens to show up every single time he needs him. Is it just luck or is it something else? Either way, life isn't as cruel as Kyungsoo thought it was. Not as long as Jongin is holding his hand.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please brace yourself for sad feelings, and stick through to the end. It will all be okay!

_Entry 1_

_I didn’t know who he was. I had never seen his face before until I was nearly dead—or at least, it felt like it. I didn’t ask for him to come save me, but I never asked to be beaten either. Up until then, I never knew such a person existed—one that would fight for me, one who would protect me and love me more than anyone in the whole world. Since that day, I didn’t realize how much he would mean to me. But now I do. I will never forget Kim Jongin._

_-Do Kyungsoo_

\---

Kyungsoo couldn’t remember when the beating stopped and when the group of vicious high school tormenters disappeared. But he felt the presence of one lingering above him and saw, peeking through his forearms that covered his face, a pair of clean, black converse. He flinched when the presence knelt close to his self-made barricade of his own body that was surely broken somewhere.

“Don’t be afraid,” said the presence. When it spoke, Kyungsoo knew that he couldn’t be afraid of it, for the voice was so quiet and tender that his muscles relaxed intuitively and the frightening atmosphere became less so. He uncurled himself from his ball in the corner of the boy’s locker room, and couldn’t find it in him to look at the presence.

Not yet, for even though his body was in horrendous pain, the pain in his heart was far worse. His bones shook violently in post-traumatic fear of what had just happened. He looked at his fingers and saw his blood and bruises and torn school uniform. His fingers blurred until hot tears fell into his open palms, and there Kyungsoo cried softly for what had been done to him. There could be no reason great enough to justify the abuse, not even his sexuality.

A pair of hands softly clasped his while his tears still fell hot on them. With wide eyes, he watched the presence’s fingers delicately wrap around his.

“I’m sorry this happened to you,” the voice whispered. “It shouldn’t have been done.”

Kyungsoo slowly lifted his eyes to the presence then, and met them with a beautiful boy who returned an endearing stare with strikingly dark brown irises almost as black as coal. Around them, there was evidence of tears as much as Kyungsoo’s.

“Why are you crying?” Kyungsoo whispered back. His chest physically hurt to speak.

“Because you are as precious as a diamond, but have been thrown in the mud.”

Kyungsoo didn’t understand, nor could he find the words to say. He could only blink while the tears kept coming out of their own will.

“You’re still shaking,” the boy said, and removed his jacket to place it around Kyungsoo’s shoulders compassionately. The body heat warmed him instantly not just on the skin but through it, into his chest and around his disturbed, tormented heart. Then a thumb reached up to Kyungsoo’s face and gently pressed at a cut across his cheek bone, causing him to wince. He didn’t know why he allowed the stranger to touch him, but he was in no condition to fight back—and evidence showed that he couldn’t before. But this time, it felt entirely different. “We have to take you to the nurse.”

Kyungsoo shook his head. He didn’t want to go back into the school building, not ever again. He never wanted to see those boys again. He never wanted to see _anything_ ever again. He wanted to disappear and he was sure no one would mind it.

He tucked his knees into his chest and wrapped his bruised arms around them, allowing sobs to leak from inside his broken, make-shift shell.

Arms enfolded Kyungsoo, holding him no matter how much his body shook and cried.

“There’s no need to be afraid anymore,” the stranger whispered into Kyungsoo’s trembling shoulders. “I’m here now.”


	2. Chapter 2

_Entry 2_

_I can’t stop; his name torments me. I write it over and over again on my arms. Kim Jongin, Kim Jongin, Kim Jongin…Where are you, Jongin? Have you left me? Will you come back for me?_

_-Do Kyungsoo_

\---

“Everyone, meet our new transfer student from Suncheon: Kim Jongin!”

Kyungsoo’s glossy gaze didn’t break from his open notebook at the introduction. He was scribbling meaningless words into it; anything that could take away his anxiety from yesterday. _Why did Mother beg me to stay here_ , he thought. _“Please, promise me, Kyungsoo. Get an education and be successful in your life so that I can go with peace.”_ The marks on his pen grew deeper and darker the further his mind pressed on those terrible memories.

The page suddenly tore under the pressure and he flinched up, only to meet eyes that carried a familiar presence, the same kind that rescued him in the boy’s locker room.

“Hello,” a student smiled down at him—the new one. Kyungsoo’s mouth parted at the sight of the one who held him last night while he cried, and so he couldn’t remember how to return the greeting. “I should have introduced myself yesterday but it didn’t seem the right time,” the boy bowed deeply anyway, “I’m Kim Jongin.” Then, without even hesitating, he took the vacant desk to the right.

Kyungsoo could only watch him with a fierce blush growing on his face until he thought that someone might find it worthy of a beating, so he quickly returned his attention into his notebook. He stared at the torn page, heart racing as the memory of yesterday filled his mind in a brighter shade than two minutes ago. All he could do was take his pen and transfer his new thoughts onto the page: _Kim Jongin?_

_His name is…Kim Jongin._

_\---_

Jongin was everywhere.

He was in almost every class, always caught looking and smiling at Kyungsoo in each of them. He asked things about Kyungsoo that no one ever cared about. “What’s your favorite color? Do you like to ride the bicycle? You look like a dog person. Do you like dogs?” He often asked if Kyungsoo needed help with anything, even taking twenty minutes to explain linear and multilinear functions in algebra that Kyungsoo had been struggling with for weeks.

The attention felt awkward at first to Kyungsoo, like a plant tasting rain for the first time after a drought. But after the first few days, Kyungsoo found himself looking forward to school because Jongin would be there, waiting for him with a charming smile on his face.

Was this luck or merely an accident?

But Kyungsoo knew that life was cruel. He knew that already, far too well.

\---

Jongin found Kyungsoo’s secret place at lunch. It was a mystery to him how he managed to do that, for the only assumption was that Jongin had been searching everywhere for him until the only option left was here, away from everyone. So there they both sat on the top of the school’s roof, leaning against a wall only an inch or two from each other. They stared up at the white masses of cotton-clouds rolling in the sapphire sky until Kyungsoo looked to the mysterious boy on his right who he had gotten to know over the week.

His profile was just right. He had a strong jaw line that made a sharp angle up to his ears, pierced once with a silver loop. For a moment, Kyungsoo wondered if it was real silver. Jongin looked wealthy enough, wearing the school’s best uniform and shoes, with well-kept features like his chocolate brown hair styled flawlessly for his bangs to fall just where they should, or his neatly trimmed eyebrows and smooth, pale skin.

Kyungsoo looked away before he was caught, pulling his knees up and wrapping his arms around them. It was a similar gesture he made the first time they met, when he felt dead and broken. Kyungsoo wondered if maybe he still felt that way, but perhaps Jongin’s presence numbed it. In fact, he felt his heart beating hard. And while he was thinking, he broke the silence himself.

“Why are you like this to me?”

Jongin turned his attention from the sky to Kyungsoo. For a moment, he didn’t answer, but only matched Kyungsoo’s gaze with his own.

“Why do some people adore the stars, but others ignore them?”

A bird fluttered by, a quick rustling of its wings filling the silence that Kyungsoo couldn’t possibly fill at that moment.

“Because,” Jongin smiled charmingly as he always did and answered himself, “Those that ignore them are stupidly unaware of their magnificence and beauty.”


	3. Chapter 3

_Entry 3_

_You called out of me magnificence and beauty that I didn’t see within myself then. You treated me as if I was the only star in the night sky, but the truth is that you always shown brighter than me. You always made yourself available to me, always keeping yourself close to me, making me feel warm. To me, you were not a star far in the distance. To me, you were the sun._

_-Do Kyungsoo_

\---

Jongin encouraged Kyungsoo to attend his last period class after a week of missing it. _You can’t live in fear forever,_ he had said. _I will be there this time._

But Kyungsoo had the same stares and snickers he had since before he was beaten by the older classmates. He could feel eyes burn into his back as he ran laps in the gymnasium. When class was over and Kyungsoo’s anxiety was at its height, he entered the locker room after everyone was out. Or at least he thought so, because while he was left in only his basketball shorts, the vicious tormentors made themselves present again.

“Look who finally came to class!” They hissed, and a hand grabbed Kyungsoo’s wrist tightly.

That is until the tormentor was propelled into the wall of lockers with a lethal slam. The other three boys reeled back swearing quickly.

Kyungsoo watched with wide eyes Jongin punch the second clear in the jaw which threw him to the ground in an agonizing cry. The third was kicked directly in the stomach and nearly puked and the fourth was shoved against the locker by the collar of his shirt that Jongin held with a death grip.

“An offense against him is an offense against me,” Jongin’s words bit like ice.

Shivers ran down Kyungsoo’s bare arms; he had never seen this side of Jongin before who always seemed so kind and gentle, but now he was as cold and rigid as a stone.

The fourth tormentor scoffed, although it came out rather nervously, “Why? He your _boyfriend?_ ”

“Yes,” Jongin answered. Then, as quick as lightning, he cut his palm through the air like a blade and slammed a nerve on the fourth’s neck. He collapsed to the floor, instantly unconscious.

Jongin stepped back from the moaning boys and turned to Kyungsoo. When he saw his nakedness, he quickly turned back around, covering long fingers over his eyes.

“Are you…okay?” He muttered like a guilty child.

Kyungsoo swallowed hard. _He your boyfriend?_

_Yes._

“I’m fine,” he lied. The truth was that he felt very much attracted to Jongin right now, much more than before, but he didn’t want to believe what he had just heard. Life was too cruel for it.

But…maybe it wasn’t.

Once Kyungsoo was dressed, Jongin finally pulled away his hand from his eyes and looked at Kyungsoo. The expression on his face was far too serious, like a decision had been made. And then his hand reached for Kyungsoo.

“I’ll walk you home.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m your boyfriend now, and I want to.”

Kyungsoo stared at him, his beautiful features glowing now when only seconds ago they were shadowed and terrifying, and then he stared at Jongin’s hand. The first time he had seen it, he was on this same floor beaten and bruised and crying. Now his heart was racing and his face was burning for someone.

Finally, Kyungsoo took Jongin’s hand. It was the first time he smiled in three months.

\---

“Don’t walk me to the door,” Kyungsoo told Jongin at the front of an old, two-story house. The front yard was overgrown with weeds and yellow grass and the off-white, wooden exterior of the house was cracking and falling apart. It was embarrassing for someone like Jongin to see, but there was nothing Kyungsoo could do about it.

“Why?” Jongin asked, squeezing Kyungsoo’s hand in concern.

“I don’t think my father would be very happy of…this,” Kyungsoo gestured shyly at their intertwined fingers.

And he wasn’t, for Kyungsoo’s father had seen it from the window. The door opened to fierce interrogation and yelling ensued as it shut behind them. The smell of his father’s alcoholic breath reeked in Kyungsoo’s face and he knew—he just _knew_ he would be in a very terrible situation if he didn’t run fast enough. So he did; Kyungsoo ran as fast as he could up the stairs until he made it to his room. He slammed the door shut, locked it, hooked a chair underneath the doorknob and ran to his bed.

The yelling stopped then, but it came back twice as bad in the night.

“ _Why would yyyou do this to mme?!”_ Slurred cries came from the other side of the wall. Fists slammed into the barricaded door. “ _You disgusting child, come out noww so I can beat y-you for what youuu’ve done!”_

Kyungsoo tried to cover his ears with his pillow, but he could hear everything too clearly. Tears leaked from his eyes underneath his blanket, his only source of refuge. He couldn’t escape. There was no ladder from his window, no magical tree to aid in climbing down. He wished for it all to stop. He wished for Jongin to be there and save him again—just one more time.

Suddenly a loud thud trembled against his window and Kyungsoo jumped up from the blinds of his blanket. Before he realized it, Jongin had his bedroom window open and was climbing through it effortlessly.

“H-how did you…?” Kyungsoo hiccupped and brought the butt of his palm up to wipe his eye. Maybe he was just seeing things. But as if to confirm it, Jongin didn’t hesitate once both his feet hit the floor: he rushed across the small space and pushed Kyungsoo back into the bed. Jongin lay three-quarters on top of Kyungsoo within a second, wrapping strong arms around him so tightly that he was sure to be going nowhere but there, underneath a powerful, protective warmth.

“Don’t cry, Kyungsoo, don’t cry,” Jongin whispered. He brought up a hand to wipe a tear away when the slamming and cursing started again on the other side of the door. Kyungsoo flinched dreadfully.

“ _Your motherr would be ssso disappointed in yyou if she were still alive, yyou filthy, disssrespectul child!”_

Kyungsoo was about to break. But then steady hands pushed up against his ears and muted every shout and slam. His shocked eyes found Jongin’s face hovering inches above his own with an unwavering expression that said _I know._ Kyungsoo cherished every feature of it and lingered on his lips. He forgot how Jongin even climbed up to his window or how he knew to come, but only thought about his presence. Everything else around them disappeared.

And in that moment, their heads grew closer and Jongin leaned in to kiss him. Kyungsoo’s eyes shifted from Jongin’s full, curvy lips to his deep gaze that pierced through him with a sort of contemplation he felt he’d never understand even if it were explained.

But instead, Jongin pressed his forehead against Kyungsoo’s—their breathing quickening—until his lips found a different place to meet than his own. It was fine as well, for they gently met the tip of Kyungsoo’s nose. They stayed there, invading every bit of Kyungsoo’s privacy, with both their eyes closed to capture the sensation infinitely more so.

Then, like slow burning, Jongin inched to his cheek and kissed him there, too, lingering softly with his breath steadily brushing Kyungsoo’s skin. He kept his eyes closed, his breathing faltering with every second the lips remained pressed against him.

Then Jongin slowly lifted up to his forehead, parting his bangs with hands as light as feathers, and kissed him one last time. One kiss, two kisses…three, four…With every press of Jongin’s lips on his forehead, it felt as if Kyungsoo’s pain pushed further  and further back. Every second melted away Kyungsoo’s fear and anxiety; trauma no longer had a place in Kyungsoo’s heart. The only thing that belonged in it now was a bright, shining star named Kim Jongin.

The star parted from his forehead and stared at Kyungsoo single-mindedly, and then his hands left Kyungsoo’s ears open again. The outside world was quiet. How long had Jongin kissed him? Or did his father give up so soon?

“He’s gone now,” Jongin whispered, tenderly brushing Kyungsoo’s bangs. He shifted his weight that was nearly entirely on top of the other and rested his head up against Kyungsoo’s on his pillow, still keeping his arms wrapped around him. “It’s time to rest,” his voice muffled into his ear.

From the way they were laying, Kyungsoo could only see the back of Jongin’s tufted chocolate hair and the way his broad shoulders lifted and fell with every breath. Jongin smelled like a field of wildflowers, and his body was like a warm, kindling fire against Kyungsoo’s skin.

In fact, his nose, cheek and forehead still burned from Jongin’s touch. From them, it felt as if his entire body had been poisoned—the quiet venom leaking down into his veins from his head to his toes—but it wasn’t painful at all. It was sensational and numbing all at the same time, and Kyungsoo fell asleep feeling it. That, and the strong, steady drum of Jongin’s heartbeat against his.


	4. Chapter 4

_Entry 4_

_Why didn’t you ever kiss my lips? Were you teasing me? Were you waiting for a special moment? Perhaps my mouth would speak if it knew what yours felt like, but now it has no words to express what my heart feels now._

_Kim Jongin, kiss my lips slowly. That’s my last wish._

_-Do Kyungsoo_

\---

It was raining.

Kyungsoo shoved his legs against the peddles as hard as he could, biking up the slope against heavy rainfall. It wasn’t pouring this bad whenever he left home—whenever his dad chased him out with a bottle of soju in hand. So Kyungsoo escaped and went on a search for Jongin who mysteriously left in the night, leaving only the warm scent of wildflowers behind on his sheets.

Kyungsoo didn’t have to wipe his tears from his eyes since the rain masked it so well. The wheels on his bike buzzed against the slick pavement of the narrow bridge that loomed over Han River, a bridge he had to cross every day with Jongin to get to school.

Nearly at the middle of the bridge, his foot slipped on the peddle and his front tire skidded out of the bicycle lane. Kyungsoo was thrown into traffic within a second, stuck underneath his bike and staring up into the oncoming headlights of a vehicle in blinding rain; there was no time to evade or scream.

There was a terrible screech against wet tar and rubber, and Kyungsoo could’ve sworn he saw someone’s face before his body was lifted and thrown aside. When he hit the railing away from traffic, he heard a thud so loud its impact shook the suspension cables of the bridge.

But it was not his body that was crushed.

Kyungsoo planted his hands and feet on the cement to stabilize himself and shot a horrified stare at the scene. The vehicle had stopped some ten feet further down, with its hood completely bent and deformed like it hit a hundred-pound steel pole. Kyungsoo’s eyes traced back the skid marks and found heaps of feathers until he stopped on a dreadful sight.

There, in the center of the road just where Kyungsoo had been, lay Jongin.

His body rested on its side facing Kyungsoo like a sleeping dog, unmoving with his bare arms extended slightly above his head like any moment he would wake up from a deep slumber.

There was an appalling cry so dreadful that Kyungsoo could hardly believe it came from his mouth. He raced to Jongin, limping, and collapsed on his knees before him. Jongin lay perfectly still, no sign of breathing, with eyelashes resting peacefully on his cheeks.

Kyungsoo’s shaking fingers hesitated once, then twice, before pushing a lock of wet hair from Jongin’s forehead.

“Wake up, Kim Jongin,” whispered Kyungsoo. Tears welled in his eyes when he received no response. His body crumbled until his forehead touched Jongin’s. “Wake up for me, please…” He kissed his forehead. He kissed it twice, three times and again and again, just like what was done to him the night before. But Jongin’s eyes wouldn’t open, so his entire body quaked with the sound of his cries until even the rain that dishonored them seemed but only a whisper.

The ambulance came and parted them.

Kyungsoo never saw Kim Jongin again after that.


	5. Chapter 5

_Entry 5_

_How did you know to find me? Was it you that rescued me? Please remember my wish, my last wish…to kiss me on the lips, slowly, that way I’ll see you again just one last time. I don’t know if it’s possible, but you seem to pull off many miracles. Perhaps there is one more left in you. If you ever return, I have to confess to you. You’re beautiful, perfect, kind and breathtaking._

_I love you, Kim Jongin. Please come back._

_-Do Kyungsoo_

\---

Kyungsoo tried to find Jongin in the hospitals. He checked every single one in Seoul over the past three days and still, every one of them said, “We admitted no one here by that name.” The frustration and loneliness was overwhelming, so he found himself writing to Jongin in his school notebook since the accident. Somehow it made him feel better—like Jongin was listening to what he wrote—and it gave him as much closure as could be given.

He sat there on the rooftop of the school (still only attending for his mother’s dying wish, and now perhaps Jongin’s), and stared at the 5 entries. He flipped back until the beginning and saw the tear in the paper he made a while back, then the name scribbled to the side of it—the first time he ever heard it: _Kim Jongin? His name is…Kim Jongin._

His pen hovered beside the name, until it slowly met the page with fresh ink: _I love yo—_

The metal door was thrown open to the roof, and Kyungsoo jerked, hearing the dreadful cackles of high school seniors. His gut twisted as the group turned the wall and found him sitting there with his journal.

“ _Oh?_ ” Said Tormentor One. “Look who we have here. The _freak._ ” A wicked grin shadowed over his face as he gestured for someone to lock the only door that provided an escape route from the roof. When it locked, Kyungsoo swallowed and felt his bones weaken.

Tormentor One kicked the journal from his hands, sending it flying a few feet to the right, startling Kyungsoo enough that he scrambled to his feet and evaded around the group into a more open space than against the wall. The group of four or five boys filled the gap and made sure the only exit was the ledge off the building, three stories high.

“Looks like you’ve got no place to go, _freak_ ,” Tormentor Two laughed. “And I don’t see your nasty _boyfriend_ around. Haven’t seen him for a few days, huh? Guess he got tired _screwing_ with you!” His fist came flying, but Kyungsoo took three steps too far backward and slipped off the ledge. All he could remember was the sound of his breath leaving him one last time.

\---

Instead, the sound of whirling air and rolling timpanis filled Kyungsoo’s ears. He opened his big, black eyes first to see the sapphire sky, and then below with a bird’s eye view of trees, sidewalks and vehicles. Then he saw them, right before him: massive, white wings pounding up against the air in rushing, mighty waves. They were as white as the clouds with feathers so magnificent, they’d put an eagle’s pride to shame.

Kyungsoo felt warmth throughout his body, and his chin rested against someone’s shoulder—the one whom the wings were attached to. He couldn’t see his face in this kind of embrace, but he didn’t need to see it for he smelt the scent of wildflowers.

“…Kim Jongin?” Kyungsoo whispered, floating there in the sky. Jongin didn’t say anything but only reciprocated with his head nudging into Kyungsoo’s endearingly.

Then the earth beneath them moved away, which felt very strange to Kyungsoo, until it became the roof of the school building again. His feet gently met the structure safely away from the edge, while the five boy’s screamed in horror.

“ _A demon! A demon!_ ” They cried and struggled to open the door they had originally locked, until they disappeared and the two were left alone on the roof; the threat was gone faster than it arrived.

Kyungsoo stepped away from Jongin’s embrace that no less saved him, and found his face more captivating than he could ever remember; it was almost glowing and certainly alive. And then Kyungsoo stared at Jongin’s wings. They proliferated from his back, stretching his entire height above his head before folding behind him. Even then, the tips of the long feathers rested comfortably on the ground.

Suddenly it made sense to Kyungsoo. Jongin came the first time he was ever beaten, and made sure it never happened again. Jongin knew of his home life and flew to the second story just to comfort him. Jongin sacrificed himself on the bridge for Kyungsoo’s safety, leaving a heap of feathers behind.

But staring at them, Kyungsoo didn’t see a single one missing, or any bruises on Jongin’s skin.

“But…you were dead…” Kyungsoo finally whispered, his eyes feeling heat from oncoming tears.

“I was,” Jongin responded openly, to which struck the other dumbfoundedly. “I was taken up to heaven where I was supposed to stay, but I wasn’t completely happy there like the others.” Jongin stepped forward and filled the small gap between them, taking one of Kyungsoo’s hands and drawing it near him and with his other brushed Kyungsoo’s jaw. “I told the elders I had to return to you. That I am intoxicated by you. My love for you is so tender—I want nothing but to protect you and give you all that you’ve ever wanted. But my love for you is also very wild, and it burns in my bones and I can’t—I can’t handle it much longer, Kyungsoo,” the look in Jongin’s eyes looked almost tormented, his jaw clenching, until he closed them and took a deep breath. He continued, “I brought to them the words you wrote in your journal as proof. When you told me you loved me, too, I…” his words fell mid-sentence as he noticed the close proximity of their faces now, inches from touching. Jongin’s brown eyes flitted from Kyungsoo’s lips back to his black irises that remained silently steady on him this whole time. He continued in a whisper, “They allowed me one last chance to see you as I really am.”

Kyungsoo’s heart sank, as if it were the one jumping from the building. He pulled back a bit.

“One last chance?”

“Well…it doesn’t have to be,” Jongin’s hand brushed up Kyungsoo’s forearm at the suggestion.

“Tell me,” Kyungsoo pressed, feeling shivers on his skin at the tangible touch. He had so much more to ask, like _How did you read my journal if I had it all along? Were you here with me but I couldn’t see you? What is heaven like; did you see my mother?_  But the only question that mattered right then was, “What must I do to stay with you, Kim Jongin?”

There was a blush setting into Jongin’s cheeks. “Angels…don’t normally feel affections for man. Not the way I am feeling them for you,” his hand brushed up Kyungsoo’s shoulder and rested on the nape of his neck, softly rubbing his thumb on his collarbone as if to demonstrate. “But on the rare occasion it can happen, the only way to be together is to...” Now their heads were close to touching, and Jongin spoke in a quiet whisper, his eyes full of both tender and wild admiration, “Kiss me.”

The two words slammed a hammer into Kyungsoo’s chest, the two words he had been longing to hear so desperately. They’re faces were so close now that their noses touched, and Kyungsoo could smell the overwhelming scent of wildflowers uncommon to this world. Then there was the slight turn of Kyungsoo’s head and Jongin’s eyes closed, and that’s when it all happened at once.

Their lips met shyly at first, warm and soft against each other, and then they embraced more confidently. As they did, Jongin’s hands held Kyungsoo’s back, steering the intimate contact the way he felt to do so; Kyungsoo didn’t mind.

But their lips parted too soon when Jongin suddenly gripped Kyungsoo in a strange, almost suffocating embrace and let out a sharp cry of pain. Kyungsoo could feel the muscles in Jongin’s back twitch and turn unnaturally, and more groans came from him. His embrace tightened at every twist, and then Kyungsoo saw it: Jongin’s wings were dying. From the root of his shoulder blades to the pinnacle joint of the wings, the feathers grew grey and thin, then black like coal all the way to the very tips. A few feathers fell before they started to disappear like ashes.

And then all that was left was Kim Jongin, breathing heavily into Kyungsoo’s neck, without wings.

His entire body was shaking and sweating and for all Kyungsoo knew, he may have never felt that level of pain before—not even in the car accident.

Kyungsoo’s hands that were already resting on Jongin’s lower back slowly moved up to the holes left in his shirt. His fingers gently felt the wounds left there like torn wood—but there was no blood.

“Jongin…what just happened?”

But he was catching his breath before he could respond. When he did, he pulled away, face as white as snow, and then smiled that same, charming smile Kyungsoo saw so many times before despite his pain.

“I traded an eternity without you for a lifetime with you.”

“But I’m not worth it, Jongin!” Kyungsoo cried. “You can’t possibly believe that!”

A shaking hand wiped the tear that slipped from his black eyes. “Why can’t I? I love you so much, I can’t imagine being without you,” Jongin leaned in and kissed Kyungsoo again, but this time it held the weight of a valuable sacrifice. Kyungsoo didn’t want to accept it—he wanted to pull away and deny such a love could ever exist for him, but then he couldn’t resist the movement of Jongin’s lips on his any longer because life didn’t have to be so cruel. He closed his eyes—and to Kyungsoo’s surprise, it still smelled a lot like wildflowers. He didn’t know when Jongin said it while they kissed, but he remembered it clearly for the rest of his life—to which he spent with him—

“I’d much rather be without wings.”

**The End.**

**Author's Note:**

> [20 years later after sharing their story with their first son. Jongin looks to his spouse.]  
> "I guess you could say I've _fallen_ for you...!" - Jongin  
>  "Shut up." - Do Kyungsoo  
> [Kyungsoo smiles.]
> 
> \---  
>  **Author's Comments:**  
>  So this the first time I've written a story like this in that it's 1) Not 1,000 words and not 10,000 words but awkwardly in-between, and 2) it's my first EXO fanfic, and 3) it's got more of a darker tone throughout it than what I normally like to write (which is humor and crap tons of fluff and all the references). I had to re-write the first chapter like three times because I hated how dark it was D: But I got the idea that I really wanted Kai to be Kyungsoo's angel, so I needed to make his life suck enough (it worked; Jongin showed up!). Nonetheless, I hope the story didn't cause you _too_ much pain, and that the ending healed all your wounds even though it still ended a little bittersweet. You would've hated me if it ended the way I originally planned :3 
> 
> Anyway, if you enjoyed the read, please leave kudos and a comment and subscribe because I will cherish you as my reader <3 My other stuff is full of humor and happy things, so please don't be afraid to check it out!
> 
> Much love,  
> Kim Charmaine


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